Who Won the American Revolution?

Seems like a pretty dumb question.  The United States won independence; isn’t that clear?

I have often wondered about the meaning of the term “independence” in this context.  Independence for whom?  For the average colonist, what really changed fundamentally?  And as time went on, what was different in life for the average Yankee having a pint in Boston vs. the average Brit having one in London?  Both have been and continue to be victims of inflation and regulation; both have been subject to being duped and dragged into the same wars for empire. 

Who won?  To address this issue I will offer excerpts from Merrill Jensen’s book, The New Nation: A History of the United States During the Confederation.  This post will likely be my last in a series of posts covering this book.

Independence: Different Strokes for Different Folks

I offer a reminder of what I have previously written regarding this time in American history and the actors present on the stage:

The story we learn of the American Revolution is one of tea parties, Paul Revere, taxation without representation, all men created equal, Patriots against Loyalists, heroes without self-interest.

The reality, for those interested and willing to dig a little deeper, is a little different – most easily understood if one accepts that the men of the revolutionary generation were not saints.  They were men with different interests, different reasons for desiring independence, and different interpretations of what independence meant for them and for their fellow travelers on the continent.

Believe it or not, many of the key players saw revolution as an opportunity to secure political advantage for themselves in place of the crown.  Shocking, I know….

George Mason of Virginia summarized this conflict amongst revolutionaries well, in 1782:

… “posterity will reflect with indignation that this fatal lust of sovereignty, which lost Great Britain her western world, which covered our country with desolation and blood, should even during the contest against it, be revived among ourselves, and fostered by the very men who were appointed to oppose it!” (Page 409, emphasis added)

Mason is, of course, referring to many of the revered “founders”; as his description is accurate, one can only describe such men as scoundrels.

Confronting the Myth of the Confederation

With that as introduction, let’s begin.  Believe it or not, the accepted story of the Confederation Period (economic chaos, confusion, etc.) is myth, designed to give justification to the centralization brought on by the coup at Philadelphia in 1787.

Robert Morris, Financier of the Revolution?

The New Nation, By Merrill Jensen

The Myth

Robert Morris was “Financier of the Revolution.”

The Reality

To give Morris the title of financier of the revolution is inappropriate.  Jensen suggests the myth is absurd, “if for no other reason than the fact that he did not take office until the revolution was virtually over.”  He took office in September 1781, about one month before Yorktown!

Yet there are other reasons.  At the end of the Confederation, he stilled owed money to the United States.  In 1790, the books of the government showed him to be the largest individual debtor.  (Page 57, 60, emphasis added)

No attack on Morris was more extreme than that by William Lee who declared him a most dangerous man in America.  He said that Morris was bankrupt at the beginning of the war, left the country bankrupt at the end of it, but that at the same time “amassed an immense fortune for himself….” (Page 367)

At least a little justice was served.  Morris lost his fortune in 1798 due to failed land speculation.

The Man who Put Crony in Crony Capital

The concerns about Morris arose as early as 1775:

Laurens swore that men like Morris made “patriotism the stalking horse to their private interests” and hid behind Washington as they did so. (Page 368)

Makes one wonder why Morris signed the Declaration of Independence….

There is so much discussion these days about the revolving door between Washington and Wall Street.  Robert Morris didn’t bother with a door; he insisted that there be little more than a breezeway:

He must be allowed to continue his own private business; he must appoint all officers in the department; he must have absolute power to appoint and dismiss anyone having to do with the spending of money.  Unless he had such powers he insisted the “the business of reformation” could not be managed. (Page 57, emphasis added)

Congress agreed to these conditions, although not without opposition.

The multiple hats worn by Morris did not go unnoticed:

…many of the merchants began to look at Mr. Morris with jealous eyes, and conceive that a connection of the financier, the president of the bank, and the receiver of continental taxes have a flow of money at their command which may be employed to the great prejudice of all…. (Page 228)

Their suspicions proved valid:

Morris assured that good bills drawn on Dutch and French banks were applied in favor of his business associates, while other creditors received little, if any, relief. (Page 370)

According to Dr. Edward Bancroft:

…Morris would resign as soon as he could “extricate some of his friends” and that he was endeavoring to do this “by the money borrowing in Holland…” (Page 370)

The man makes Henry Paulson, who also stayed in office long enough to extricate his friends from financial woe, look like an altruistic public servant.

The Lost Story of the American Revolution

Page references are to The New Nation, by Merrill Jensen. 

The story we learn of the American Revolution is one of tea parties, Paul Revere, taxation without representation, all men created equal, Patriots against Loyalists, heroes without self-interest.

The reality, for those interested and willing to dig a little deeper, is a little different – most easily understood if one accepts that the men of the revolutionary generation were not saints.  They were men with different interests, different reasons for desiring independence, and different interpretations of what independence meant for them and for their fellow travelers on the continent. 

Believe it or not, many of the key players saw revolution as an opportunity to secure political advantage for themselves in place of the crown.  Shocking, I know….

There was one person in a position to do a completely thorough job of telling the story of the revolution, as he had first-hand knowledge of every political action taken and attempted by the principle actors of the time:

The one figure who, more than any other, represented continuity throughout the Revolution was Charles Thomson, the Irish-born “Sam Adams of Philadelphia.”  He was elected secretary of the First Continental Congress by the radical element which had immediately sensed in him a fellow spirit. (Page 361, emphasis added)

What does Jensen mean by “radical element”?  Throughout the book, Jensen describes a key philosophical divide between two factions of revolutionaries – and it is the divide that played out throughout the period of the Confederation, to the drafting and ratification of the Constitution, and through the first half of the nineteenth century – finally culminating in complete victory for one side.

On one side, the revolutionaries consisted of true federalists (wrongly labeled “anti-federalists”) – those who looked to independence from England as a means to independence for each of the several states.  It is this group that Jensen refers to as the more radical throughout the book and it is this group that aligned more with the idea of self-government (or state sovereignty).  Jensen places Thomson in this camp – just as he does Sam Adams, to whom Thomson is favorably compared.

On the other side were the nationalists (popularly, but incorrectly, labeled “federalists”) – those that wanted a strong, coercive central government.  They wanted independence from England because they wanted to keep the fruits of coercive central government to accrue to themselves.  This group ultimately prevailed – through incremental steps such as the Constitution, larger steps such as Lincoln’s war, and ultimately at the turn of the twentieth century with empire, central banking and war as key foundations.

Charles Thomson had a front row seat to the political doings of all of the actors from both sides of this divide.

Thomson kept the Journals and all the other papers of Congress and saw to their printing…. His office carried out correspondence between Congress and the state governments; his signature and seal were placed on the official versions of ordinances, commissions, and treaties. (Page 361)

Military Victory Without a Central State

The New Nation, By Merrill Jensen

(Keep in mind the proper, as opposed to popular, use of the term “federalist” throughout.)

To the detriment of the nationalists, the United States had won the war for independence before they were able to consolidate their power in a stronger, coercive central government. This section of Jensen’s book examines the attempts made to secure centralized power during the last two years of the war, and the ultimate failure of the nationalists – well, failure until the convention in Philadelphia several years later.

By 1781, the nationalist group was finally in a position, within the framework of the Articles of Confederation, to implement their agenda.

Their program was stated clearly by James Duane.  “There are,” he wrote Washington, “some political regulations…I have exceedingly at heart and which are now drawn near to conclusion…the principal measures to which I allude are the establishment of executives or ministers in the departments of finance, war, the marine and foreign affairs, the accomplishment of the Confederation: and procuring to Congress an augmentation of power and permanent revenues for carrying on the war.”

This program was carried on with smoothness and precision.  (Page 54, 55)

The nationalists wanted several departments, each led by single individuals; the federalists did not trust such power to individuals, but to committees of Congress.  By 1781 – at the verge of military victory – this federalist group found itself on the short end of political power.

In early 1781 Congress created the “Department of Foreign Affairs,” a “Secretary of War,” and a “Department of Finance.”  Each department came with a secretary – none more powerful than Robert Morris in Finance, who was even more powerful than the Congress.  For all practical purposes, Congress made Morris a dictator. 

In some cases, backroom deals and even foreign intervention were found to be useful in ensuring the “right” person filled the job.  It took several months to fill some of the posts – given the fight put up by the true federalists.  (Page 55, 56)

The position of secretary of war is interesting.  After several months of fighting and debate, Benjamin Lincoln got the job.

His generalship in the South had been so bad that the British had captured his whole army without any particular effort on his part to save it.  In fact the only successful military exploit he ever engaged in was during Shays’ rebellion when he marched mercenary troops against his fellow citizens in western Massachusetts.  His conquest of the disorganized farmers who lived there was an unquestioned victory.  (Page 56)

The story of Robert Morris is also interesting.  There is so much discussion these days about the revolving door between Washington and Wall Street.  Robert Morris didn’t bother with a door; he held both seats at once:

He must be allowed to continue his own private business; he must appoint all officers in the department; he must have absolute power to appoint and dismiss anyone having to do with the spending of money.  Unless he had such powers he insisted the “the business of reformation” could not be managed. (Page 57, emphasis added)

Congress agreed to these conditions, although not without opposition:

They saw in him the spearhead of a movement to overthrow the federal government and to establish a dictatorship.  His fulsome protestations of disinterested patriotism did not convince his enemies, nor even many of his friends.  (Page 57)

To give Morris the title of financier of the revolution is inappropriate.  Jensen suggests the myth is absurd, “if for no other reason than the fact that he did not take office until the revolution was virtually over.”  He took office in September 1781, about one month before Yorktown! At the end of the Confederation, he stilled owed money to the United States.  In 1790, the books of the government showed him to be the largest individual debtor.  (Page 57, 60, emphasis added)

The Balance Between Security and Liberty

We are constantly reminded of the delicate and well-considered balance that the politicians and bureaucrats are weighing when considering how best to protect us from men in caves on the other side of the world. 

I have thought about this in the past regarding the American Revolution.  Set aside the intricacies of the history, revisionist history, etc.  The colonies, with no standing army at the start of the war and no local centralized government worth mentioning, took on the most powerful empire of its time, and won.

Granted, foreign aid helped the colonies achieve victory – but this doesn’t alter the fact that, starting with none of the supposedly necessary trappings of a state to conduct a war, the colonies achieved military victory.

The colonies did not have the luxury of balancing security and liberty – the colonists had little control over the amount of “security” provided; King George and the Parliament pulled those strings.  The colonists were the recipients, not the decision-makers, regarding this balance.  Yet, they ended up achieving liberty, at least for a time.

The issues of balancing security and liberty weighed on the Congress during the Revolutionary War as well.  One of the things I am learning in reading through Jensen’s book, “The New Nation,” is the details behind the various factions in the revolution and how these factions attempted to sway the balance within this false choice.

This post is not directly a continuation of my review of Jensen’s book.  Call it a tangent, based on a couple of paragraphs from the book that shed light on the nonsense of this so-called choice between security and liberty.

The main actors during the revolution can be spilt into two groups: on the one hand were the nationalists – popularly but erroneously labeled the Federalists.  The nationalists wanted a strong and coercive central government, both during the war and after.  They liked what Britain had in terms of coercive power; they just wanted that coercive power to be local and their own.

On the other hand were the Federalists – popularly but erroneously labeled the anti-Federalists.  The Federalists wanted a confederation of states, with little centralized power.

During the early years of the war the Federalists held power in Congress.  The Federalists resisted every attempt at centralizing coercive political power.  The nationalists, as the war dragged on and the outcome seemed more in doubt, began to take control.  For the period 1781 to 1783, the nationalists had control of Congress.

The nationalists proposed all sorts of measures to centralize power and secure a permanent revenue stream to the Congress.  I will cover the details in a separate post; suffice it to say here, they secured virtually none of their proposals, and those that they did secure were implemented almost at the same time that the war was over, with the Battle of Yorktown. 

In other words, even the centralizing “victories” for the nationalists came too late to have any influence on the outcome of the war.  The colonists won the war, without a strong central government and without a central government’s ability to coerce tax revenue.

Keep in mind, when the potential outcome of the war was at its darkest, the states and the Congress chose liberty over so-called security every time until the nationalist take-over in 1781.  Their feeling was: what is the point of victory if we have to become that which we are fighting in order to achieve it?  (There is a thought.)

With that as background, I offer Jensen, who makes the point far better than I do:

The nationalists had realized ever since the battle of Yorktown that the end of the war would mean an end of their greatest hope for constitutional revolution.  Their arguments for centralization and the supposed efficiency and economy that would result depended heavily on the continuation of the war, and they knew it. (Page 66)

The nationalists who ruled Congress from 1781 to 1783 had not achieved their ends.  Their constitutional theories, their proposed amendments, and even the desperate hope of actual military revolt had all been shattered by the winning of independence itself, without the adoption of any of the measures which they had insisted were indispensable for the winning of it.  In a way, they had discredited Congress among the people by their insistence on gathering power to it.  The people, so far as they had fought for independence, had not fought for the independence of a vague entity known as the United States, but for the independence of their own particular states. (Page 83, emphasis added)

The nationalists were not able to implement their measures before the victorious end of the war – measures that they insisted were necessary in order to win the war. 

There was no trade-off between security and liberty.  The states, and to a great extent the people, held liberty as paramount and at the same time achieved security against the most powerful military on earth of the time.

A lesson that should not be lost. 

Corporatocracy in the Revolution

Merrill Jensen: “The New Nation; A History of the United States During the Confederation 1781 – 1789”

NB: The term “federalist” is to mean those favoring a confederation, counter to the usurped meaning.  The term “nationalist” is used for those who favor a strong central government.

Debt and Inflation

Jensen continues, offering details regarding the various methods by which the United States financed the war.  Suffice it to say, most involved inflation and much of the rest involved borrowing from various European entities.  One item of interest is the action taken by Congress in March of 1781, when the Articles of Confederation went into effect:

…Congress was advising the states to do away with their legal tender laws.  Shortly thereafter it advised them to do away with paper money entirely.  By the end of 1781 paper currency had stopped circulating as money. (Page 41)

This is interesting, and – beyond speculating – I admit I don’t understand the reasons why such a step was taken.  Perhaps the paper money was by then so obviously worthless that there was no longer any point in pretending?

In any case, some states were still collecting paper money as taxes, then turning it over to Congress to destroy; some speculation in the market remained regarding paper currency.  Beyond this, it carried no importance. (Page 41)

This did not end the saga of the public debt, however.  Speculators of various forms bought it up – by 1783, 80% or more of it was held in the northern states, according to Hamilton. (Page 42) 

Disdain for Democracy

Such men, as you might expect, included in their ranks the chief proponents of a coercive centralized government – the nationalists:

Their plans and the measures they took, shape much of the history of the years 1781 to 1783, and frustrated though they were as the treaty of peace was proclaimed, their program for the future was revealed almost in its entirety.  It had as its chief end the destruction of that self-government within the states which the separation from Great Britain made possible.  They looked upon that self-government as an evil, an evil which they described as “democracy.” (Page 42, 43)

This strikes me as crucial on several points: first, the desire by many to achieve a coercive central government was plainly evident well before the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia (and before any of the trumped-up calamities under the Articles); second, I have often read of the disdain of many of the founding generation for the idea of “democracy.”  This is usually presented in a context of favoring a republican form or for avoiding the tyranny of the majority. 

It seems it was neither.   Jensen here sheds new light on the reason for the disdain – it wasn’t because of a fear of the tyranny of the majority; instead, it was precisely to ensure the control by the minority.  Democracy to this generation meant “self-government”; a thing to be avoided if the merchant class had their way. 

National Government is the Objective

As initially drafted, the Articles of Confederation gave significant power to the national government.  This concept gained little traction among the federalists of the time.  The Articles of Confederation as finally ratified left sovereign power with the states, with the central government as “their creature.”  This was the result despite the opposition from the colonial ruling class, desirous of independence under a new, central coercive government. 

The Objectives Behind the American Revolution

Merrill Jensen: “The New Nation; A History of the United States During the Confederation 1781 – 1789”

Jensen begins his work by looking at the factors behind the American Revolution, and the objectives of those who advocated for it.  As can be expected in any similar situation, while there is reasonable commonality amongst many of the advocates of revolution regarding that which they are against, there is relatively little that binds what the revolutionaries are for.  He also examines the war effort, and the various factions behind it.  Needless to say, the facts are far different than the myth; realpolitik as opposed to fable.

He introduces the primary issue: for many, “independence” meant political independence of the several states from Britain and in most ways from each other; for many others, it meant independence from Britain in order to form a local central and national government. 

The currents of national government did not begin to flow with the debates during the Constitutional Convention and the back-and-forth of the debates thereafter; before the Declaration of Independence was signed, there were many who wanted such an outcome.  This struggle was not the result of a (not-quite-true) few bad years under the Articles of Confederation, but the perpetual and relentless efforts of a sub-set of the revolutionaries.

NB: Jensen uses the term “federalist” in the proper manner – not in the manner it has been co-opted, but in the more consistent meaning of the term.

The high water mark for the true federalists was probably the ratification of the Articles of Confederation.  However, both before and (obviously) after this event, the nationalists often had control.  Ultimately, of course, with the Constitution, they succeeded in their objectives.

The Articles of Confederation embodied their conviction that the greatest political gain of the Revolution was the independence of the several states.  These men were the “federalists” of the Confederation period.  Opposed to them was a group of men who, on the whole, had been reluctant revolutionists.  Most of them believed that the new nation should have a central government with power to coerce the state governments and their citizens.  This group got control of Congress in 1781 and held it until the end of the war.  These men were the "nationalists" of the Confederation period.  They were convinced that their best hope of achieving the government they wanted was the continuance of the war.  Beyond this they believed, as did the “federalists,” that the means used to pay the national debt would in large measure determine the extent of the power of the central government.  (Page 4, emphasis added)

In any case, upon the end of the war, the nationalist leaders returned home and the federalists, along with the states, were once again in the controlling position. (Page 5)  One reason that wars no longer end, it seems; a lesson lost on too many Americans today….

The Path to Peace

Before coming to the form of the new government, Jensen examines the path to the end of the war, and the negotiations for the peace treaty.

Offers for a peaceful settlement were made by the British early on in the war – first by the Howe brothers in 1776, and later by Lord North in 1778.  The offers included “everything except the crucial thing – independence.”  There were offers to mediate – by Spain, Austria, and Russia.  In some cases, Britain rejected the offers; in others the Americans did so.  The American victory at Yorktown changed everything – including the British government. (Page 7)

Exposing the False History During the Confederation

In libertarian circles – both those of the minarchist variety and those of the anarchist variety – the time in the US under the Articles of Confederation are considered to have offered a better political environment than what came after.  This certainly sounds good to me, but beyond ignorantly smiling approvingly I have little knowledge of the period.

In order to understand this period better, I will work through a book by Merrill Jensen, “The New Nation: A History of the United States During the Confederation 1781 – 1789.”

Who is Merrill Jensen?

Merrill Monroe Jensen (1905–1980) was an American historian whose research and writing focused on the ratification of the United States Constitution. His historical interpretations are generally considered to be of the "Progressive School" of American history, the most famous exponent of which was Charles A. Beard.

His early scholarship challenged the "consensus" interpretation of the Constitutional ratification process, arguing that the Articles of Confederation were a better expression of genuine democratic values than was the Constitution. The replacement of the Articles with the Constitution, Jensen argued, created a system of government that minimized the influence of radical democracy rooted in local politics. From his reading of the documentary evidence, he identified deep ideological conflicts among Americans at the time of the ratification.

From the forward, by Richard Morris:

Merrill Jensen’s The New Nation has assumed its rightful place as a classic.  When it first appeared it was welcomed by the historical profession as a brilliant refutation of the traditional picture of the years preceding 1787. (Page vii)

Jensen went after the traditional view that the period under the Confederation was chaotic had “no value as either history or example,” and that the weak economic condition of the 1780s was not sufficient reason to explain or justify the supplanting of the relatively weak federal system in favor of a strong central government. (Page vii)

Jensen refers to those who favored the decentralized system properly as “federalists” (contrary to the popular usage) as opposed to the “nationalists” or centralists. (Page vii)

Jensen notes that the post-Constitutional debate regarding the power afforded the central government did not start with the Constitution, and certainly not with Hamilton and Jefferson: “for they had been the very core of constitutional debate ever since the Declaration of Independence, and even before it, for that matter.”  The debate continued in the decades that followed, with Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun on either side of the argument – and each switching sides over time. (Page xiii)

He notes that Jefferson – who was, when not in office, the champion of a decentralized system – justified his purchase of Louisiana by “constitutional theories that even Hamilton hardly dared use.” (Page xiii) 

Jensen points out that advocates of ever-larger monopoly government, including world government, point to the time under the Articles as a reason that further centralization is beneficial – the time falsely labeled as chaotic. (Page xiv) 

Even if it can be granted that most appeals to the history of the Confederation have been sincere, let it also be said that they have seldom been infused with any knowledge of the period or its problems.  The result has been the drawing of lessons the past does not have to teach. (Page xvi)

The main culprit of this false history, in Jensen’s eyes, is John Fiske and his book The Critical Period of American History, “a book of vast influence but of no value as either history or example.” (Page xvi)

The picture is one of stagnation, ineptitude, bankruptcy, corruption, and disintegration.  Such a picture is at worst false and at best grossly distorted…. We have too long ignored the fact that thoroughly patriotic Americans during the 1780s did not believe there was chaos and emphatically denied that their supposed rescuers were patriotic. (Page xvii)

The question never was one of a new nation – that there was a new nation was never in debate.  The issue was if the new nation should have a federal or a national government. (Page xviii)

It is this story that Jensen tells, and the history I hope to understand.